Redmayne, Barks talk of 'Les Misérables'

MOVIES

Updated 3:11 am, Sunday, December 23, 2012

Eddie Redmayne is Marius and Samantha Barks is Éponine in the film adaptation of "Les Misérables."

Eddie Redmayne is Marius and Samantha Barks is Éponine in the film adaptation of "Les Misérables."

Photo: Universal Pictures

Redmayne, Barks talk of 'Les Misérables'

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Onscreen in "Les Misérables," Eddie Redmayne and Samantha Barks are as serious as can be, singing about life and death and barricades. But in person, during a San Francisco stop while promoting the film, the two actors are practically giddy talking about the big-budget movie musical based on one of the world's most popular theatrical extravaganzas.

Redmayne, a Tony Award winner for his work on Broadway in "Red," is probably best known for "My Week With Marilyn," in which he was a star-struck production assistant. He remembers seeing "Les Miz" onstage in his native London when he was 7.

Climbs barricades

"I wanted to be Gavroche, the kid who climbs all over the barricades," says Redmayne, 30. "I kind of still want to be Gavroche."

Not that he's complaining about his role as romantic leading man Marius, the guy who falls for the lovely Cosette, gets wounded in a street battle and is dragged through Paris sewers by the heroic Jean Valjean (played onscreen by Hugh Jackman). Marius also gets to sing the plum solo "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables," which Redmayne, like the rest of his co-stars, sang live on set.

"When you see the movie, it seems like this was absolutely the right choice because there's no veneer between the actors and the audience," Redmayne says. "But it's easy to take for granted the risk Tom took or the fights he had to fight to give us the opportunity to sing live."

Redmayne is referring to director Tom Hooper, who came to "Les Miz" fresh from winning the best director Oscar for "The King's Speech." The process of singing live involved earpieces through which the actors heard a live piano accompanist and microphones on the outside of costumes. All the electronics were then digitally erased for the final film.

When it was Redmayne's turn to sing his big number, he says he was so nervous he required seven complete takes of the song before Hooper said they got what they needed. "I wasn't quite satisfied," Redmayne says. "I said, 'No, we go on 'til I'm bleeding tears!' "

Secretly in love

Barks plays Éponine, the Parisian street urchin who's secretly in love with Marius. Her stand-out solo is "On My Own," a song Barks got to know well when she played Éponine in the 25th anniversary concert of "Les Miz" in London and then continued with the role for a year in the West End.

For the movie version of her song, the 22-year-old Barks had to contend with pouring rain and a very tight corset.

"I thought, 'No problem. I'm a Brit. I can do rain,' " says Barks, a native of the Isle of Man. "But a rain machine, which hovers directly over you, is something else. And then the costumers would say I didn't look wet enough, so they'd hose me down. Also, in the book, Victor Hugo says that Éponine is barefoot, so I went barefoot and ended up with 2,000 splinters in my feet."

In addition to having his cast, which also includes such heavyweights as Anne Hathaway as Fantine and Russell Crowe as Inspector Javert, singing live in front of the cameras, director Hooper also allowed them to create some of their own blocking and build their own barricade.

Key scene

Redmayne describes the filming of a key scene on the streets of Paris as a group of student revolutionaries build a barricade and loose their muskets at government soldiers.

"Tom put a bunch of cameramen in costume and disguised their cameras, so we didn't know where they were or what they were shooting," Redmayne says. "When he says action, we basically assemble a barricade in 10 minutes. Then, afterward, they pinned together what we built and we filmed on that."

During a battle scene, when Barks' Éponine is scampering over the barricades, Hooper let the actors follow their own muses as they loaded muskets, made ammunition and took aim at the government bad guys.

Says Barks: "Tom made it so real for us. After some takes, I had never felt my heart pound like that. It was pure adrenaline. Tom's incredible at creating these real situations and placing you in them. That's the closest I'll ever come to being in battle."

With a director so intent on authenticity in singing, acting and action, it's no surprise that the "Les Miz" company felt like it was creating a new kind of movie musical.

'Part of a team'

"We were all doing something none of us had ever really done," Redmayne says. "So it felt like being part of a team. We all looked like lunatics doing vocal exercises all the time to keep our voices warm. There's nothing funnier than watching Wolverine and Gladiator doing vocal warm-ups."

For Barks it all comes back to director Hooper. "Seeing Tom fuse the musical and the book was phenomenal," she says. "His attention to detail blows my mind. He's created something entirely new while still encompassing all the things you love about the musical and the novel. I think he's a genius." {sbox}

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